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Monday, June 11, 2012

Euro 2012

Jeremy and I went to watch the England/France match at a pub/club/bar in Sharjah. Sharjah is technically a dry emirate, so I don't know how this one place manages to serve beer, but it does. I didn't care what they served as long as the game wasn't shown inside a horribly cigarette-smoky room. It wasn't!

The game was shown on four televisions/projector screens around the room, so we didn't have any trouble following the action. What was more troubling was trying to figure out how things work in a pub. It was a true cultural immersion, but the culture in question was British, not Emirati. I suspect we were the only Americans there, or two of only a few. Most of the patrons were young British men, though there were a few women and older people - probably the parents of those young British men, since you can't drive until you're 18 here. In any case, we spent a lot of the first half wondering how to finagle ourselves a drink. I observed the people next to us and then had Jeremy copy what they did - he walked to the bar, requested a drink (Sprite and Coke, if you must know), and then sat down. In a little while, the guy brought it to us in cute little half-pint glasses and we paid him right then and there.

Fortunately, watching the game itself required no such careful imitation. It was great fun to watch England, well, tie with France, in the company of jovial, very slightly drunk Britishers.

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We've been in and out of Russia, the Middle East, and the United States since 2001, with one summer at the Middlebury Arabic School in Vermont. We used to live in Tucson and also spent one glorious year in Upstate New York. Current adventure: Sharjah, UAE.